As an active-duty U.S. Army Nurse Corps Officer with over 23 years of service, Lt. Col. Brandy Clayton has been leading the way for her peers and the next generation of nurses. Now, she is leading the way as the first graduate of Liberty University’s Ph.D. in Nursing – Nursing Education.
Clayton enlisted in the Army as an LPN in 2000 and has primarily worked in military facilities in the labor and delivery, postpartum, and newborn areas, helping military service members, their spouses, and their children. She eventually transitioned into administrative roles and is currently the Chief of Nursing Education and an instructor at Madigan Army Medical Center at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Lakewood, Wash.
“Once I started learning how to be a great nurse and built my foundation in nursing, I felt like it was my calling to train the newer nurses,” Clayton said. “That’s now the biggest thing for me.”
After earning her bachelor’s in 2006 and her master’s in 2012, both through the Army Enlisted Commissioning Program, she knew she wanted her doctorate. She found Liberty University Online Programs through a simple Google search and learned that the program had launched the previous semester. She started classes in March 2020.
Clayton focused her dissertation on the effectiveness of simulations of fetal monitoring in training pre-licensure Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) students as opposed to learning solely from a textbook or on the job, and she found that the simulations helped reinforce their learning.
“With our national nursing shortage, there are a lot of new nurses going into the labor and delivery field who do not understand how to read the (monitor results),” Clayton explained.
She was enthusiastic about visiting Liberty’s top-notch nursing simulation labs when she was on campus for the first time to participate in this year’s Commencement festivities.
Liberty’s Ph.D. in Nursing – Nursing Education is a research-focused doctorate that prepares nurses at the highest level to identify research gaps, design research studies, and translate and disseminate new knowledge that will impact the profession. The degree is applicable for those who seek to be leaders/scholars in research and nursing education inside and outside of academia.
